Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler [106]
“Oh, tell us,” their grandma said, sounding relieved.
“I was standing on a mountaintop,” Daphne said. “God was speaking to me from a thundercloud.” She looked around at the others—their polite, attentive faces, all prepared to appreciate whatever she had to say. “ ‘Daphne,’ He said—He had this big, deep, rumbling voice. ‘Daphne Bedloe, beware of strangers!’ ”
“And quite right He was, too,” their grandma said briskly, but she seemed less interested now in hearing the rest of it. “Doug, could you send the salad bowl this way?”
“ ‘Daphne Bedloe, a stranger is going to start hanging around your uncle,’ ” Daphne bellowed. “ ‘Somebody fat, not from Baltimore, chasing after your uncle Ian.’ ”
“Why, Daphne!” their grandma said, and she dropped a clump of lettuce on the tablecloth.
Later, Daphne argued that their grandma was the one who’d hurt Sister Harriet’s feelings. After all, what had Daphne said that was so terrible? Nothing. She had merely described a dream. It was their grandma who had connected the dream to Sister Harriet. All aghast she’d turned to Sister Harriet and said, “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what’s got into her.” Then Sister Harriet, white-lipped, said, “That’s okay,” and sipped shakily from her water glass, not looking at the others. But she wouldn’t have taken it personally if their grandma had not apologized, Daphne said; and Thomas and Agatha agreed. “She’s right,” Agatha told Ian. “It’s not Daphne’s fault if someone fat was in her dream.”
This was after their guests had departed. They had left at the earliest acceptable moment—Miss Pennington reflective, Mr. Kitt bluff and unaware, Sister Harriet declining with surprising firmness Ian’s offer to walk her home. As soon as they were gone, the grandparents had turned and climbed the stairs to their bedroom.
“Daphne was only making conversation,” Thomas told Ian, but Ian said, “Yeah, sure,” in a toneless voice, and then he went into the dining room and started clearing the table.
They followed, humble and overeager. They stacked plates and took them to the kitchen, scraped leftovers into smaller containers, collected pots and pans from the stove while Ian ran a sinkful of hot water. He didn’t say a word to them; he seemed to know that all three of them were to blame and not just Daphne.
They couldn’t bear it when Ian was mad at them.
And worse than mad: dejected. All his fine plans come to nothing. Oh, what had they done? He looked so forlorn. He stood at the sink so wearily, swabbing the gravy tureen.
Last month he’d brought home a saltcellar shaped like a robot. When you pressed a button in its back it would start walking on two rigid plastic legs, but they hadn’t realized that and they hadn’t paid it much attention, frankly, when he set it among the supper dishes. He kept asking, “Doesn’t anyone need salt? Who wants salt? Shall I just pass the salt?” Finally Agatha said, “Huh? Oh, fine,” and he pressed the robot’s button and leaned forward, chortling, as it toddled across the table to her. His mouth was perked with glee and his hands were clasped together underneath his chin and he kept darting hopeful glances into their faces, and luckily they’d noticed in time and put on amazed and delighted expressions.
“Dust off the fruitcake, it’s Christmas again,” he always caroled in December, inventing his own tune as he went along, and on Valentine’s Day he left a chocolate heart on each child’s breakfast plate before he went off to work, which tended to make them feel a little sad because really all of them—even Daphne—had reached the stage where nonfamily valentines were the only ones that mattered. In fact there were lots of occasions when they felt sad for him. He seemed slightly out of step, so often—his jokes just missing, his churchy language setting strangers’ eyes on guard, his clothes inappropriately boyish and plain as if he’d been caught in a time warp. The children loved him and winced for him, both. They kept a weather eye out for other people’s reactions to him, and